Globality and Aesthetics Framing the Three Gorges Dam

The Three Gorges Dam (TGD) is currently the world's largest hydroelectric project. The difficulty of coming to terms with the TGD lies not only in its extensive effects on the ground, but also in the ways in which its history has been enmeshed in global networks of finance, business, politics and activism. This article considers how the uncertainties generated by the dam translate into aesthetic phenomena that in turn illuminate the contours of globality in China. The first part of this article examines a public park built near the TGD the purpose of which is to frame and fix the dam's ideological meaning for tourists and visitors. The second part considers the work of contemporary Chinese painter Liu Xiaodong, whose large-scale paintings depicting displaced peoples constitute a broader critique of painting and realism. Despite their markedly different stances, both foreground the conceptual boundary between art and the world as part of a complex engagement with globality.